


There'll Always Be a Lady Fair

by Philipa_Moss



Category: Some Like It Hot (1959)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, a lot of marriages, a tiny bit of grief, and eventually true love, and some classic hookups too, marriages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/pseuds/Philipa_Moss
Summary: Greta is the first. She has eyes like sapphires. Osgood knows he doesn’t have to marry her to spend time with her, but the temptation of waking up to those eyes for the rest of his life proves too great.(A stroll through the many wives of Osgood Fielding III.)
Relationships: Jerry "Daphne"/Osgood Fielding III, Osgood Fielding III/Others
Comments: 11
Kudos: 62





	There'll Always Be a Lady Fair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aneelin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aneelin/gifts).



> Title stolen from Cole Porter.

Greta is the first. She has eyes like sapphires. Osgood knows he doesn’t have to marry her to spend time with her, but the temptation of waking up to those eyes for the rest of his life proves too great. The week following his graduation from Princeton, while his mother cries, Osgood and Greta get married. Later, when she decides she likes his best friend better and runs away, Osgood doesn’t take it personally. Beauregard really does have remarkable strength in his neck.

Next comes Clementine, who Osgood meets at Beauregard and Greta’s engagement party. Clementine is the only one bold enough to approach Osgood, rather than whispering about him behind his back, as through he can’t hear every word. “How can you stand it?” Clementine asks, and Osgood says, “They’re only moving down the street,” and Clementine looks impressed. After they’re married—Osgood and Clementine, not Beauregard and Greta; that was weeks ago—Clementine admits that she’d only taken up with him to get out of her house. “And you seemed so easygoing,” she says. “So unlike any man I’ve ever met before.” He doesn’t fight her on the terms of the divorce. He wants her to have everything she needs.

Number three is entirely Osgood’s fault. He follows his mother’s advice and marries Louisa, the pretty, quiet daughter of the Smythe family. After an entirely passionless first year, Osgood gets pleasantly soused at his five-year reunion and, in a repeat performance of a memorable Triangle Club gathering, wakes up next to Harrison Weatherington IV, whose father owns oil yards. What occurred the night before can be chalked up to drunken exuberance, but when Harrison wakes up they go at it again. After, Osgood scrubs his belly clean in the shower, packs his overnight bag, and returns home to end his marriage.

Marriage number four has a lot in common with a mirage. What is her name? Do they ever actually marry? She wears many yellow dresses, a fact Osgood finds both eccentric and charming, but Osgood is also drunk for most of the time he knows her, and his default when drunk is to end in eccentric and charming locales with eccentric and charming people. At any rate, in autumn Harrison comes by for a weekend party and she is quick to make herself scarce. 

Osgood strongly suspects that marriage number four was in fact not a marriage, and that Betty is his fourth wife, but Mama writes him a letter in which she refers to the woman in the yellow dresses by name—a drop of ink unfortunately obscuring the whole thing—as his wife, so that’s that, he supposes. The letter is written because Osgood elopes with Betty and his mother is furious. Furious because she is denied the opportunity to attend and furious because she has never met Betty. It’s a reasonable complaint. Osgood himself only met Betty a few days ago, but when he saw her come out on stage balancing a bowling pin on her head he knew he had to marry her.

Six is Emma, the nurse who takes Osgood out into the hallway and tells him Betty will make a full recovery, but has asked not to see him. Apparently, Betty is actually in love with someone named Thomas, possibly the same man who botched this attempt to saw her in half. Osgood suspects that this is misguided, but he can’t throw stones in a glass house, or in a hospital, so he nods sadly and leaves. The next week, he receives a note from Emma, asking him how he’s bearing up. Osgood is touched. Not since Clementine has anyone asked him how he’s bearing up, so he writes back. Thus begins a passionate correspondence, the contents of which sometimes leave Osgood flushed and agitated. Some of the things Emma describes wanting to do once they are married Osgood has only experienced with Harrison. He has assumed, in fact, that he would have to choose between these things Emma describes and a married life. To know that he can have both at once turns Osgood’s world upside down. One thing is clear: they have to marry as soon as possible, so they do. Mama thinks Emma is beneath him, but that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters more than Emma: her smile, her kindness, the way she completely understands him. 

They are married for five years.

The diagnosis comes as quickly as everything in Osgood’s life used to come. He has gotten used to a slower way of being, so he is caught off guard. He is supposed to be comforting Emma, but she comforts him. He supposes this is what marriage is. 

After, Osgood misses her so much he buys a yacht, but even that doesn’t help. 

The yacht gathers dust. 

One morning, Osgood looks at himself in the morning and realizes he’s gotten old. He looks like a different person. He doesn’t mind it, much. Maybe this new person won’t miss Emma as much. He tries smiling. Good. He smiles wider. Even better. He starts to believe the smile, and the relief is visceral. Emma would want him to be smiling. “Zowie,” he mutters under his breath. He feels lighter than he has in years.

Penelope is his seventh wife. They meet after his yacht sinks. Osgood is still wearing a damp evening jacket and party hat and sitting on the sand when she approaches. “Gosh,” she says, “you look as though you’ve had quite a night.” She looks a little worse for wear herself, her bottle-blonde hair disheveled and part of her dress slipping down. “Will you have coffee with me?” Osgood asks. She agrees. Anything Osgood asks, Penelope agrees to. When he asks her to marry him, she agrees, and when he asks for a divorce, she agrees. Leaving the courthouse, Osgood wonders whether he knew a single thing about her. 

Vera can smoke a cigarette while holding it between her toes. It’s the first thing Osgood notices about her and it’s his favorite thing about her even after they marry. Osgood thinks it might be interesting to be a producer—he’s never really figured out what they do, but he knows it’s a job and he’s been thinking he should get a job—so he’s throwing a little money at a theatre not far from where he lives and that happens to be where Vera performs. Vera refuses point blank to leave behind her career as a contortionist when they marry, and it just makes Osgood love her even more because he wouldn’t want her to. He loves the way she looks in her body. The way her body looks, yes, but also the way she uses it, the way she obviously feels about it. Vera’s on the road a lot, so every reunion is like a honeymoon. Once, Vera comes home and Osgood forgets his mother is expected for tea and she walks in on them while Vera is smoking and Osgood’s mouth is otherwise occupied and she doesn’t die of shock but it’s a near thing. After, Vera can’t quite look at Osgood and Osgood can’t quite look at his mother and so it seems inevitable when Vera next hits the road and doesn’t come back. Inevitable, yes, but it eats at Osgood, being alone again so soon.

Osgood buys a yacht.

Osgood takes the yacht to Florida for the winter.

Daphne is Osgood’s ninth wife and, he strongly suspects, hopes, his wife for keeps. Daphne is unlike anyone Osgood has ever met, and Osgood has met a lot of people. She is flighty and irritable and easily spooked, at first. She doesn’t like how big Osgood’s house is—she says it’s like living in a museum—so Osgood sells it and buys an apartment overlooking the park. When he shows Daphne around their new place, she goes red all over, the way she always does when Osgood does something nice for her. “It’s like a tree house,” she says, and Osgood says, eagerly, “Yes!” He knows exactly what she means. He picked it out because he could imagine it as a nest for the two of them, a place to be cozy and safe and content, things Daphne is still getting used to, and Osgood, too. Daphne leans on Osgood’s shoulder when she’s tired. Daphne is a terrible cook, so Osgood hires someone to cook for them. Daphne loves music and pretends not to love dancing, so Osgood takes her out and coaxes her onto the dance floor. Osgood loves holding Daphne where everyone can see. Sometimes Daphne is Jerry, and Jerry is a lot like Daphne except he’s quieter, and he takes less time in the shower, and he sometimes looks at Osgood with this soft smile on his face like he can’t believe they’re married. Osgood understands the feeling. Osgood is an exceptionally fortunate person—he has been all his life—but sometimes even he can’t believe his luck.


End file.
